The Man Who Does Not Drown
by Mewdu
Summary: When is it that a kill becomes a number? Is it when faces begin to become the nameless? Ivan never did much like the winter.


**Okay. Straight to the point, I'm new to Hetalia. Don't know too much about it, but I've read enough (hopefully) to make an accurate oneshot of Russia. I pondered whether to think it over more and create a complete story, but I wasn't sure about taking the risk. So, if you've clicked this out of curiosity, I hope you enjoy it. And about Russia ending his sentence with "da." Well, I felt like it didn't fit too well even though I wanted to stay true to his character. So, sorry for my noob behavior.**

**Note: I use his human name in this. Ivan. Just a heads up.**

**Song that inspired me: _Soldier Side _by_ System of Down_**

**Enjoy. **

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His smile never felt right. Ivan was prominently aware of this, although he was not sure as to why. When you smile, it is a reaction to show the world that you feel happy. But the smile on his face felt too easy, and knew it was not the cause of what surrounded him, because what surrounded him was snow.

Ivan held out his gloved hand, studying the intricate webbed snowflakes with a serene eye. It was strange he could hate something he also thought to be beautiful. "Tell me," he said. The boy kneeled at his feet stiffened from the sound of his voice. He bent lower to the ground and his purple fingers dug further into the white drifts. Ivan's smile fell at once, unsure how to react to the boy's fear. Then again, there was the snow. He had the right to be so brooding. "What do you think these wars mean?"

The boy did not move from his spot so near the snow, and Ivan was troubled for a moment over whether he had frozen from the cold and now lay dead at his feet. Only winter would bring so awful a burden upon him. But then the boy's head tilted up slowly, cautiously peering up. Ivan studied the boy's red face, determining he could not have been older than eighteen. His blue eyes were wide with wonder, watered over with stark fear as they jumped from Ivan's hard gaze to the snow under his trembling hands.

"I," he started, then fell silent. His voice was shaky, and he did not look up at Ivan. "I do not understand."

Ivan breathed through his nose, aware of the fog that came from his hot breath. It really was getting too cold to be irritated by such a small misunderstanding. Perhaps he had spoken in his native tongue. "I will tell you what I think of these wars, these _battles_," he said instead. Questions would only take longer than he would be pleased by. What this young boy needed was insight. "War is like the snow, do you not think?"

The boy's eyes darted up and down. "Ye-yes. It is."

Ivan fixed his heavy gaze upon the small boy, noticing for the first time he had no hat. This could be easily explainable if he took to account that Ivan had tailed him across such a large distance, and his hat had simply fallen off. But this bothered Ivan immensely. He brushed the insignificant thought away. "Snow can bury a man up to his neck if one lets it," he continued, fingering the visor of his own hat for reassurance. "It will choke you, trap you in the dark..."

While he let the boy absorb these words, he trailed a circle around him, stopping at his bent back. Ivan grew curiously amused when the boy's shoulders jolted at the touch of his hands, and was all too aware of his skipping heart when Ivan leaned next to the boy's red ear. "War is the same," he said quietly. "Some men cannot handle the weight it takes. And unfortunately..." he stood straight, running one cold finger down the length of his pistol's silver barrel hidden beneath his coat at his side, "...neither have no pity for the cowards, nor the broken." He slid the gun from his waistband. Despite the cold, the handle felt refreshingly warm in his hand. "Do you know what happens to them?"

The boy could have said yes, but Ivan would not have heard it. He only watched the snowflakes floating all around them like white rain. But rain would be so much warmer. Pity it was not raining in Russia. "Yes," he whispered to the falling snow. "Those are the men who drown."

Ivan took his leisurely time lifting the pistol from the flap of his coat, admiring the gleam it had against the white of the snow. The click that came from the gun nearly made him giddy and he smiled.

"Please," the boy suddenly said. He jerked from his position on the ground, facing Ivan with his young face twisted with something Ivan could not identify."I am no coward." He met Ivan's eyes sharply. "If you must, kill me here. Even if I die a soldier who never took an enemy life, I have died fighting for my country, and my beliefs. I beg you. Please." His blue eyes closed and he bowed his head.

Ivan regarded the boy–no, the man with surprising appraisal. "You are no coward," he consented. "And you are neither a broken man." He gently placed the barrel at the boy's head. "But cowards are not the only ones who die."

His blue eyes slowly revealed themselves upon Ivan, curiously studying his face as if he were completely oblivious to the gun at his head. "Tell me," he said calmly, never breaking his gaze from Ivan. "Who are you, soldier of Russia?"

Ivan tilted his head to the side, and for once the smile from on his lips faded, revealing the real man underneath. "I am Russia."

The release was like a thunder bolt. It shook the stillness of winter, and stained the white snow red. Ivan looked at the man lying motionless amidst the snow. He had closed his eyes before the shot and seemed so much younger, like a sleeping child. But if one leaned closer, you could see the blood on his face, a dead man's white face streaked with his own blood.

Ivan lifted the hat from his head and laid it over the boy's silent eyes. Then he stood, following the crunch of his own footsteps, and ignoring the raging calls in the distance. It was a foreign tongue they screamed in, the enemy language calling out to an MIA comrade. Ivan tried not to hear it, would have traded his heart if only to bar himself against their desperate yells.

"_Michael!"_

He strayed too far to possibly hear the curses and cries when they came upon the boy in the snow, but Ivan had experienced such a death in numbers he did not care to count. Did not care to name.

_Michael._

In the silence of winter, the snow never did hesitate to drown a man_. _Even if he wished to drown, the winter passed and he continued to live_._

"I really hate the winter."

If only it bothered just once to kill him.

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End file.
